NDA Measurement Analysis of Spent Nuclear Fuel Assemblies at the SwedishClab Facility Using the INDEPTH Code

• A project to research the application of non-destructive assay (NDA) to spent fuel assemblies is underwayamong a team comprised of the European Commission, DG Energy, Directorate Safeguards; the SwedishNuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company; Uppsala University; and US national laboratories (LosAlamos National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Oak Ride NationalLaboratory). The research goals of this project combine safeguards goals (detection of missing/substitutedfuel pins and verification of operator declarations) and non-safeguards goals (estimation of decay heat andreactivity of each assembly). The final objective of this project is to quantify the capability of severalintegrated NDA instruments being developed to meet the aforementioned safeguards and non-safeguardsgoals using combined signatures of neutron, gamma-ray, and decay heat.In support of these goals, passive gamma and neutron measurements were made on 50 spent fuelassemblies at the Swedish Central Interim Storage Facility for Spent Nuclear Fuel (Clab) using high-purity germanium and Fork detectors. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Inverse DepletionTheory (INDEPTH) code was used to reconstruct the spent fuel parameters (initial enrichment, burnup,and cooling time) for each assembly. INDEPTH uses a gradient-based search technique—combined withthe ORIGEN code for forward depletion calculations—to find the spent fuel parameters that result inpassive gamma and neutron outputs that best match the measurements. The results of the INDEPTHcalculations are presented and compared to the operator declarations (trusted in this case) in order toassess how accurately these parameters can be determined using current passive gamma and neutronmeasurements. These results will provide a baseline which can be used to assess whether and by howmuch new safeguards instruments being developed for NDA measurements can improve the accuracy ofreconstructed fuel parameter values.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik -- Subatomär fysik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences -- Subatomic Physics (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Fysik med inriktning mot tillämpad kärnfysik

Physics with specialization in Applied Nuclear Physics

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